Page 63 of South of Nowhere (Colter Shaw #5)

63.

From cover near the command post, Colter Shaw nodded to his sister.

Dorion’s plan had worked.

Earlier in the day she had hired her own demo expert, a quirky guy named Hire Denton to get to Hinowah as fast as he could. He’d arrived several hours ago, along with a sizable inventory of various explosives.

Dorion had sized up the notch the Never Summer flowed through and the canyon just north—upstream—of it. Denton would plant five kilos of C-4 in strategic places where she had determined an avalanche would dam up the river almost entirely before the water got to the Hinowah levee. He was to be ready to detonate the packages the minute she texted him.

When they had concluded a few minutes ago that it was likely Bear and the fake soldiers were going to blow the levee to help their escape, Dorion had signaled Denton that it was time to detonate the charges he’d set.

The resulting dam meant the land to the north would fill up quickly but the lake would cover only abandoned fields and a swamp. There was enough empty space to contain the water until the county or state—or the real Corps of Engineers—got a new levee in place. Then Dorion’s dam would be slowly dismantled and the Never Summer would begin to flow again.

But the aquatic state of Hinowah and its surroundings were not foremost on Colter’s mind.

Bear, Olsen and the corporals had lost their leverage and—whatever they felt about the failure of the levee’s destruction—all that was left for them was to escape the traditional way: in a getaway vehicle, notably Bear’s pickup, still hidden in the woods.

That meant that the crew’s earlier problem persisted: crossing Route 13 under fire from Colter and Starr and others at the command post.

Olsen was the first to start, but Starr forced her back with a half dozen shots.

“Damn,” the officer muttered. Presumably because of her dismay at missing the woman, but even getting slugs close enough to drive her back to cover was an accomplishment. That was a hell of a range for a sidearm.

Then too she could rise to a firing position only very briefly; Bear had zeroed in with his telescopic sight and was placing rifle shots exactly where he wished them to go.

Colter too returned fire but his gun—with a barrel length a half of Starr’s and a tenth of Bear’s—was pretty useless for distance shooting like this.

Mayor Tolifson, who had been huddling under cover, terrified, inhaled deeply a half dozen times and, his face filled with resolve, rose fast and lifted his own Glock. Before the mayor could pull the trigger, though, Bear parked a slug right beside him, spattering rocks and dirt. The slim man whimpered and dropped to the ground.

Starr called, “Mayor. Gimme your mag.”

He stared.

“Bullets. I need your bullets!”

He wasn’t quite sure how to get the magazine out of the gun. Colter scrabbled to him, and grabbed the weapon.

Starr shook her head. “No, you keep it, Colter.”

A nod. He checked the weapon.

It was unloaded.

Grimacing, Colter called, “Tolifson, ammo? You have any ammo?”

He blinked, stared at the gun, then closed his eyes in dismay. “The office. I…I forgot to check.”

His weapon was now a paperweight.

It was then that Bear laid down covering fire for the two corporals, one of his slugs striking the gas tank of the Public Safety pickup directly behind Dorion and Lavelle. The women rose to get out of the path of the streaming liquid. Lavelle made it to cover, but Dorion slipped and slid about ten feet down the hillside, completely exposed to Bear’s weapon.

Starr called, “I’m out, Colter.” He saw the slide of her Glock was locked back.

Colter was too.

Then Bear stepped out from cover, looking toward the CP tent, understanding that his enemies were out of ammunition. He’d looked through a spotter scope and seen the locked-back receivers. He worked the bolt and aimed toward Dorion, who climbed onto one knee and drew her own pistol, a small Glock like her brother’s own. She aimed carefully at Bear, who paused.

He actually seemed amused.

She fired six fast shots the big man’s way, emptying the weapon.

They all missed.

Colter sprinted to her and helped her to her feet.

Bear aimed slowly.

Who would he target, the brother or sister?

His and Dorion’s eyes met. He squeezed her hand.

“Damn it, Colter. Remember the rule: Never get sentimental. Ashton told us—”

Her words were cut off by the huge rolling boom of a hunting rifle.

Dorion gasped.

Colter froze.

Neither had been hit.

She said, “Look.”

Pointing to the hillside where Bear was standing.

The big man was wincing in pain—and dismay. His rifle had been shot out of his hands. A slug had slammed into his receiver and splinted the stock, sending it flying. His hand appeared broken.

His face was eerie. He looked as if a friend had just been shot. He stared at the corpse of the rifle, shattered, on the ground near his feet.

“Who?” Dorion called.

Mary Dove. That was who. Her shot—from her .308—had hit the stock of the big man’s rifle.

She was shaking her head—a message to the man.

Bear was frozen in position, staring down at the woman.

A moment passed during which neither of them moved.

No, Colter thought to Bear. Don’t.

He crouched, drew his Colt pistol and began to lift it.

He didn’t even get ten degrees to target before his mother’s rifle bucked again.

The bullet struck Bear in the middle of the chest.

The man looked confused. Betrayed. He dropped to his knees and picked up his own wounded rifle…He didn’t lift it in an attempt to fire the gun. He clutched it to his chest and then fell forward. He went still.

“No! Don’t shoot.” A woman’s voice. Olsen—or whoever she really was—had shouted.

Apparently, Mary Dove’s shooting had convinced her and the corporals that more police would arrive.

“Don’t shoot!” she called again. “We’re surrendering.”

Apparently she had no idea that the reinforcements did not involve a phalanx of SWAT officers but a woman in her sixties, who weighed at most one hundred and ten pounds.

—

Mary Dove replaced her Winchester in the rack, thinking of the hundreds of times she’d used it to put food on the table in the Compound.

In all her forays into the autumn fields over the years, she had never felt the least emotional about bringing down a buck, merely concentrating on aim to make sure the creature didn’t suffer.

And she had not felt any emotion now. From the glove compartment, she retrieved her pistol, resting in a ruddy holster she herself had tanned, cut, and stitched. She’d stitched the gun belt too, which she now strapped on.

No one was more devoted to the concept of gender equality than Mary Dove Shaw. She nonetheless felt there was something unladylike about semiautomatic pistols, especially the profoundly ugly black Glocks.

No, a woman should pack a revolver. In addition to the aesthetics, she believed that six shots were plenty if you knew what you were doing. (And the one she wore was a Ruger .44 Magnum, firing a slug so powerful that it would go straight through an assailant on its way to disabling the engine block of his getaway vehicle.)

“Those were good shots.” Mrs. Petaluma nodded approvingly as she replaced her own gun, the old cap-and-ball Colt Dragoon.

The women shared a smile and they climbed into the pickup.

Mary Dove fired up the engine and motored along the street in the direction of the levee. As they passed the mudslide, she noted three trout flopping on the ground in a shallow puddle.

She stopped and climbed out. Knowing how slippery such creatures could be, she took out a pair of canvas work gloves from the toolbox affixed to the back bed, and collected the fish one at a time, depositing them in a cooler in the back of her truck and covering them with water from several bottles.

After police statements, and helping in any other way she could, she would ask to borrow Mrs. Petaluma’s kitchen to fry up the trout for the woman, Colter, Dorion and herself.

Mary Dove had her own Never Rules. And one of the most important was:

Never miss a chance to have a meal with friends and family.